“Okay, so how do I stop Lahn –?”
She smiled and lifted a hand to my cheek, leaning her face close to mine. “I, too, found great difficulty in understanding this way of life. This, especially this, did not sit well with me and it is the only thing that took me a great deal of time to come to terms with. I did not like The Horde doing it but especially I did not like knowing my husband did it and he did, my dear Circe, he did, even after we were married.”
I closed my eyes.
Diandra kept talking. “So I found a way to stop him from doing it.”
I opened my eyes.
“How?” I whispered.
She dropped her hand. “Seerim always told me when there was a campaign. In most cases, wives stay with warriors. Wives are usually kept close. So, the night before and the morning of I made certain he had what he needed, all that he needed, as many times as he needed what he needed from me so he wouldn’t feel the need to take it from someone else.”
I got what she was saying.
“In other words, you fucked his brains out,” I replied on a smile.
“Erm…” she muttered then grinned, “if I take your meaning then yes, my dear friend, I fucked his brains out.”
I couldn’t help it, the subject matter sucked but Diandra saying that made me giggle.
Then I stopped giggling and whispered, “Well done.”
Her grin grew into a smile and she replied, “Indeed. And my tactic worked. He did not speak of it but he would come back from a campaign smelling of dirt, of sweat, of blood but never again of woman.” She nodded smartly. “There are ways to get what you need out of your warrior. You just must be clever in finding them.”
What will be was what I make of it.
“Right,” I whispered, she peered into my eyes a moment before she nodded smartly again and then turned us back to walking.
I could tell from the familiar surroundings we were heading back to my cham and I wondered, when we rode, how I would learn another layout or if The Eunuch always set up the Daxshee the same.
Then I wondered about Seerim and his age.
“Does Seerim ride with The Horde now?” I asked Diandra.
“Sometimes, during raids, if he so chooses but he has charge of training young warriors and that takes most of his concentration. During the selection, he received ten new boys he needs to break as well as keeping charge of the twenty other boys he was working with. He is quite busy with this and it is an important role. Only honored warriors as they get older are required to take on the training of the young. This is because their skills are considered desirable by the Dax and he wants these warriors to pass down their expertise. It is a high compliment.”
She spoke proudly and I squeezed her hand as my cham came in sight. “Well done, Seerim,” I said softly.
“Indeed,” she replied distractedly, I looked to her and then I followed her gaze.
That was when I noticed what I hadn’t noticed before. There were two warriors standing outside my cham. Feetak and the grinning one who Lahn spoke to the night of the games.
He was not grinning now, he was scowling, as was Feetak and the instant they laid eyes on us, they turned to my cham, bent and entered.
“Is something going on?” I asked as Diandra and I got closer.
“I do not know,” she answered softly. “But I do know, we soon shall see.”
We made it to the cham and I entered first. There was candlelight and the space was filled with warriors. Feetak and the grinning one, another one I’d seen in passing often speaking with Lahn, Seerim and Lahn.
My eyes stuck on Lahn who didn’t look at all like he was in a good mood. I started to smile hesitantly and whispered, “Hey.”
It was then he instigated the breaking point.
He took two swift, angry strides to me, his arm going down and across his body and before I knew his intention, he swung it out and struck me with the back of his hand on my cheekbone.
He did this with all his substantial strength and therefore my vision burst in a firework of white lights, agonizing pain radiated out from my cheekbone, piercing through my eye, my face and my brain to bounce against the inside of my skull and I flew to the side and went down on the hides.
I was blinking and concentrating on getting the excruciating pain to fade when I heard Diandra start, “Circe, are you –?” and I turned my head to see Lahn thrust her back with such force, she went flying into her husband. Seerim caught her, his fingers closing on her biceps as he held her steady but not tenderly. He, too, I noticed vaguely as the pain faded but did not, by a long shot, go away, looked seriously pissed.
Lahn was barking words and my eyes moved to him to see he was staring down at me as he raged. My hand drifted up to my cheekbone and I stared dazedly back at him.
“He… he wants me to… to… translate,” Diandra said haltingly then spoke a flurry of quick words in Korwahk.
I said nothing, just stared at my husband.
Lahn’s enraged eyes didn’t leave me when he snarled more words and Diandra started talking.
“He… the Dax… he says he did not know where you were. He says they’ve been looking for you. He says you are never to leave the cham without a guard.” She paused and Lahn kept thundering then she went on. “He says you are queen and you must understand this and the possible dangers and you must never, never leave the cham without a guard.” She stopped then she said, “Circe, I’m so sorry, I didn’t –”
I took my hand from my face, lifted it toward her palm up and she stopped talking.
Lahn had quit speaking but his dark eyes were still filled with wrath and they were burning into mine so fiercely I could actually feel the fire.
And I did not fucking care.
I pushed to my feet and turned my body to facing him.
Then I spoke and when I did, so did Diandra.
“My father loved my mother. He loved her deeply. He said they were the perfect match. When I was ten and she was murdered,” Diandra stopped talking and I heard her soft intake of breath but then she carried on because I didn’t stop. “He never got over it. Never got over her. Never. And he gave me all the love he would have normally given me and the love he would have given her. He thought I was precious and he treated me that way. This was because I was his daughter but it was also because I was the most important thing my mother gave to him and I was all he had left of her.” I swallowed and watched my words start to penetrate Lahn’s fury but I didn’t care about that either and kept right on talking. “And I promised myself, vowed, that I would find a man like my father who would love me deeply and treasure me more than anything in the world.”
I stopped talking when I saw Lahn’s body lock.
Then I kept going.
“You raped me,” I whispered and Diandra spoke softly, “and somehow I found it in me to forgive you. You left me out in the burning sun even though I told you the harm it would do to me and I forgave you. This is your world, this is your way and I have struggled with it but I have accepted it.” I pulled in breath and continued, “But what you did just now, taking your anger out on me when I did something in all innocence, I cannot and will not forgive. You do not know your own strength but it is formidable, so formidable it cows men but I am no man. I am a woman, your woman and you used all of it in violence against me and that, kah Dax, is unforgiveable.”
He held my eyes at the same time he held his body completely still.
I finished and I did it quietly, “My father was an honorable man and he would wish for me to be treasured. If he were here, he and all of his men would fall by your Horde’s swords in order to protect me from the harm you’ve inflicted on me. They would do it and before they did it they… wouldn’t… blink. And because of that, because I know that in the depth of my soul and because of everything he gave to me, all the love he showed me, in return, I loved him more than anything in this world. I respected him. I honored him over any man I ever met. But he is lost to me. He is gone and th
erefore could not be here to protect me but you should know this, my king… if he knew you, he would not like you.”
When I stopped speaking, I realized my chest was rising and falling rapidly and I held his eyes as they burned into mine.
Then he barked out the words, “Tahkoo tan!”* and the instant he did, I felt the tent empty but I didn’t tear my eyes from Lahn.
We stared at each other for long moments after we were alone, Lahn statue-still, me breathing heavily before he said in a quiet voice, “Vayoo ansha.”
I shook my head and whispered, “Never. For good and always, you have lost me. Na me lapay kah Lahn. Not anymore.”**
I watched him flinch but I didn’t care about that either.
When he recovered, his voice was soft when he said, “Vayoo ansha, kah rahna fauna.”
I shook my head again and moved. Skirting him, I went to the trunks and dropped to my knees to open one to get a nightgown thinking I had no escape. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t even have another fucking room where I could hide and let lose the tears that were burning in my throat.
I felt him come at me before he got to me then his arms closed around me from behind, trapping mine tight to my front and he pulled me to my feet. He held me close and bent at the waist so his face was in my neck. There he spoke more soft words and I pushed hard against his arms caging mine but, as usual, there was no give.
That burning in my throat grew so hot it rivaled the pain I still felt in my cheekbone and I felt the additional sting of tears in my sinuses.
“Let me go,” I whispered on another attempt to jerk my arms free.
He spoke more soft words and I jerked again. Then he let me go, I started to step away but before I could I was up in the air, cradled in his arms but they were like steel bands, locking me close. I tried to arch my back and buck but this was to no avail. He turned and took two long strides to the bed, sat then fell to his side, my back to the bed, my hips in his lap, thighs over his and I couldn’t swallow the sob that tore from my throat, filling the tent with the sound of sorrow.
“Kah Lahnahsahna Circe,” he whispered, his hand cupping my head, forcing it into his chest as his other arm locked me in place.
“Let me go,” I sobbed into his chest, my hands flat against it on either side of my face, pushing, but he didn’t move. I gave up and whispered, “Let me go.”
He didn’t let me go, he kept my face in his chest and his arm tight around me as I cried, I sobbed, I bawled, I let it all hang out. Everything. Everything I was feeling. Everything that haunted my headspace for days. Being in this world and not knowing why. Being hunted and raped. Being confused and hurt. Watching a man die while his chain was hooked to me. Losing my world, my father, my job, my friends, my culture and everything I knew. Finding friends and building friendships at the same time not knowing if they would be torn away. And struggling against starting to fall in love with a man I didn’t understand, whose ways frightened and repulsed me but I was drawn to him by something I couldn’t deny because it was just… that… strong.
And then, with one swing of his mighty arm, falling right out of love and landing with a crash so brutal, it shattered me.
In other words, I cried a lot of fucking tears.
So many, it exhausted me. So much emotion, I couldn’t get it all out, it was impossible, the effort felt like it would kill me and my body had to shut down just to survive.
Therefore I fell asleep in Lahn’s cradling arms even as the tears continued to fall.
* * * * *
I woke in the night still in Lahn’s arms and I didn’t hesitate in pulling away, rolling and getting up from the bed.
Candlelight still spluttered, as it always did, he never extinguished them in the night, and it led my way to the trunks. I opened one, selected a nightgown, pulled it out, took off my clothes and jewelry, dropping them unheeded to the rugs at my feet and then I slid the nightgown on.
Then I moved to the bed of hides by the flaps and laid down, my head to the cushions, my back to Lahn in the bed.
I barely got settled before I was going up, his arms around me, cradling me to his chest again and I was back in bed. He jerked the silk out from under us, settled it over us and then he pulled me under his body, his heavy legs tangling with mine, his arm nearly fully around me, his weight pinning me to the bed.
As ever, no escape.
So I escaped the only way I had.
I twisted my neck to turn my face away.
But I was with Lahn and Lahn being Lahn, he didn’t even give me that.
His big hand curved around my jaw and he turned my head so I was facing him then his fingers glided into the hair at the side of my head, his thumb against my cheek, forcing my face into his throat and keeping it there.
I felt the burn in my throat and pulled in a deep breath that broke in the middle, loudly, communicating my struggle against tears.
Lahn’s fingers tensed into my scalp but otherwise his hand didn’t move.
It took a lot out of me, everything I had left, but I succeeded in holding them back.
When my breath evened, communicating I won my battle, Lahn’s neck bent and I felt his lips on my hair as his fingers again tensed gently into my scalp.
There he whispered, “Na lapay kah rahna Dahksahna. Na lapay kah Lahnahsahna. Na lapay kah Circe. Fahzah, Circe. Fahzah. Farzah kay markan nahna rah ruhnee zo kay. Farzah. Kuvoo sah, Circe, loot farzah danhay.”***
One couldn’t say I had the Korwahk language down pat, not even close, but I knew enough to know what he was saying.
And from the way he said it, I knew he really meant it.
And there it was, I had no choice, I had no escape, I had nothing.
So I closed my eyes, forced my body to relax and tried to find sleep.
This took awhile before I succeeded and his hand never left my head until I was out and when I went out, I went out.
So I didn’t feel nor even sense Lahn’s hand drifting down to curl around my neck nor did I feel the pad of his thumb tenderly press up on my jaw to expose my face to him.
And lastly, I didn’t feel his lips brush mine before his arm curved around me, he pulled me deeper under him and then he fell asleep.
*Translation: “Leave us!”
**Translation: “You are not my Lahn.”
***Translation: “You are my golden queen. You are my tigress. You are my Circe. Always, Circe. Always. Never will I allow your gold to be taken from me. Never. Understand this, Circe, and never forget.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Gifts
The noises of the Daxshee being disassembled and packed up were all around me but I didn’t see it nor did I hear it.
I was completely in my head.
Being in that world was no good place to be and being in my head wasn’t much better.
Still, it was better so that was where I was going to be.
It was early afternoon the next day after Lahn struck me and I knew from the noises invading the cham that woke me up (alone in our bed, might I add) that the packing up had already begun.
The minute I moved in bed, my girls swung into action, feeding me, bathing me, dressing me like the queen I was and then quickly went to work to pack our belongings for the ride.
Now, I was sitting outside on a big, soft hide with some cushions under a piece of gauze that had been set up on a slant to protect me from the sun. I had a plate of untouched food in front of me, a jug of water, a cup and Ghost was rolling around, playing with some toy one of my girls had made for her (in other words, tearing the thing to pieces).
The activity was intense, the hustle and bustle all around and I watched with distraction six young men who were likely around fourteen or fifteen, clearly Horde warriors in training considering they were all tall, fit and muscular, pulling down Lahn and my cham.
They were good at it. They were strong, fast and clearly had some practice.
Then I felt it before I saw him round the tent. That raw, brutal
energy.
Lahn was coming.
I braced and then I saw him move toward me wearing nothing but his hides, his boots, his hair still in the braid I’d plaited in it the day before.
He moved well, I noticed. He’d been trained since he was a little boy to know what his body could do and command every inch of it and that was exactly how he looked when he moved.
All that power was at his complete command.
And now I knew in a way I never wished to know just how much power he wielded.
His eyes were on me the second I was in his line of sight and in that same instant I caught his flinch.
He’d marked me. I knew it. I didn’t have a mirror and I didn’t need to see his reaction to be made aware of it. The skin on my cheekbone was tender to the point that even the lightest touch caused significant pain and it was swollen so badly the skin felt stretched to the breaking point. But even if I couldn’t feel it, I saw it in the eyes of my girls the minute they saw me that morning and then, all day, the eyes of those moving around me. Or, more to the point, those eyes in faces not smiling at me, heads not nodding but avoiding my gaze and, after seeing my husband’s mark, looking swiftly away.
I noticed even with the flinch his gait didn’t stutter as he made his way to me. And I tipped my head way back to watch him as he didn’t hesitate to bend, his hand finding mine, engulfing it and without a word to me he pulled me gently to my feet.